Process for cleaning- india-eubbeh



T SAULT.

Cleaning India Rubber No. 16,069. Patented Nov. 11, 1856.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFTQE.

T. SAULT, OF SEYMOUR, CONNECTICUT.

PROCESS FOR CLEANING INDIA-RUBBER.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 16,069, dated November 11, 1856.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, T. SAULT, of Seymour, in the county of New Haven and State of Connecticut, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Process of Cleaning India-Rubber; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact clescription of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, in which Figure 1 is a vertical section of a cleaning machine in the line wa2 of Fig. 2. Fig. 2 is a plan of the same. Figs. 3 and t are detail views of portions of the machine on a larger scale.

Similar letters of reference indicate cor responding parts in the several figures.

The machinery by which my invention is performed resembles in its general character the machine known as the pulp engine used for grinding rags in the manufacture of paper, which machine with very little or no modification has been heretofore adapted to the purpose of cleaning india rubber. But I provide the cylinder with serrated sided teeth of the character hereinafter described to work between stationary serrated sided bars of the character hereinafter described on the concave bed below the cylinder, for the purpose of tearing up the rubber by a peculiar rubbing and stretching action which is more effective in extracting the impurities than the action of the teeth and cutters heretofore employed.

To enable those skilled in the art to make and use my invention I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A is the vat. B is the cylinder secured to the shaft E, which is arranged in the usual manner in bearings on opposite sides of the vat and has a rotary motion imparted to it by any convenient means.

0, C, are the serrated tearing teeth secured to the periphery of the cylinder, upon which they are arranged in rows running directly around the cylinder. They are not however arranged opposite each other longitudinally of the cylinder but in oblique lines.

D, D, are the serrated bars that are secured to the bed F, of the vat for the teeth to work between. These bars are arranged parallel with each other in lines at right angles to the axis of the shaft as is shown in Fig. 2 where part of the cylinder B is supposed to be broken away to expose the bars. The teeth C, G, and bars D, D, are

serrated the whole depth of their sides or nearly so, the edges of the serrations of the teeth standing in the direction of the revolution of the cylinder and the edges of the serrations of the bars in the opposite direction. The form of the teeth C, C, and bars D, D, and the manner in which they are serrated is illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4 on a larger scale than in Figs. 1 and 2, Fig. 3 exhibiting parts of the cylinder B, and bed F, in section and a side view of one tooth and one bar; and Fig. t exhibiting a plan of two of the bars and one of the teeth between them. The direction of the revolution of the tooth is indicated in Fig. 4: by an arrow. The bars are slightly tapering toward the ends a, a where the teeth enter between them so that the spaces between the sides of the teeth and the bars diminish in width as the teeth approach the heels 6, b, of the bars where the teeth leave them.

The points a, a, of the bars D, D, are arranged so that each stands in advance of or behind those on either side of it, or in other words so that the points a, a, of no two bars which are next each other shall be opposite each other as is illustrated in Figs. 2 and 4, the object of which is to prevent the pieces of rubber to be torn up from being dragged by the teeth across the points of two bars at the same time, which would be productive of great waste of power. The oblique arrangement of the teeth in a lateral direction also tends to prevent the above action and the dragging of the pieces of rubber by two teeth across the point of one bar.

The teeth C, C, and bars D, D, should be made of steel or chilled cast iron and may be attached to the cylinder B and to the bed F in any suitable manner.

The india rubber before being submitted to the operation of this machinery is simply cut into slices of uniform thickness from the blocks in which it is imported or comes into the market. When submitted to the operation of the machinery, the tank is nearly filled with it and a constant stream of water is allowed to flow into and escape from the tank keeping the india rubber well covered. The cylinder B being set in operation the rubber is drawn by the teeth C, C, between themselves and the bars D, D, where, as the teeth pass between the bars, it receives a violent rubbing, grinding and stretching operation by which it is reduced from its original solid state to a state resembling sponge, all its impurities being liberated from their confinement within it. Their separation and extraction is effected by the difierenee of their specific gravity, the heavier particles subsiding to a cavity in the bottom of the tank below the bed F which is perforated for their escape and the lighter ones floating away at the surface of the water. This separation and extraction of the impurities does not however, differ from the same operation in the machinery generally used, but by the pe culiar action of the teeth their liberation is more completely effected and consequently their separation and extraction more perfect. 7

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is- The cleaning of india rubber by means of 20 T. SAULT.

WVitnesses:

AUSTIN G. DAY, CHARLES P. BRADLEY. 

